A Bad Dream
by Arait
Summary: This is a scene from A Growing World whose content was too mature to be part of the main story. After learning some of Hayashi's past, Fushimi has a nightmare that involves his own.


_**WARNING: This story is dangerous. Unfortunately it's word for word a dream I actually had. It takes a sick person to read this, and an even sicker one to write it. Please, if you do choose to read it (going so with extreme prudence), try to see the symbolism in it and not just the physical. Thank you, and sorry.**_

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"Saruhiko, please!" Hayashi's voice rang pleadingly through the stale, night air, startling Fushimi. The piercing request seemed to echo through his mind, the voice of someone who dared call him "friend" to his face, in spite of him being who he was, yelled out to him by his first name without there being any hint of mockery.

The cold cabinets lining the walls of a vacant room were unnervingly familiar. Icy floors reflected the occasional florescent light from the hallway but remained mostly darkened by the midnight hour. _No need to disturb the sleeping patients._ This unprovoked thought came to Fushimi's mind even before a periodic beeping sound registered as barely loud enough to be irritating.

Only, the patient wasn't sleeping. She was calling for help. Fully aware that the nurses had banished him to where his feet were planted, the young officer took a fist full of thick, beige curtain and tore it aside. He wouldn't stand idly by any longer.

Naturally, his eyes widened in shock, when he did not find Hayashi with three, standard medical personnel. His hand twitched slightly toward clenching at the sight of her - gird in bandages, IV tubing, and with a narcotic-induced perplexed expression - she was lying prone, crosswise on the narrow bed. Lingering over Hayashi's torso, was a ghastly face from the mirror.

The glint of a cheeky grin contrasted dull, grey skin, shaded grimly by chalky strands of charcoal hair which had strayed from the hold wax had on its one side. Dark tips spiked outward chaotically, purposefully forming a careless appearance. Several piercings and chains rounded out a stylishly dressed-down look that Saruhiko remembered as clearly as if he had seen it yesterday.

A snarl crossed the young officer's lips, and, even though the moment before his steps had faltered from the sight, he lunged toward the man who had been gone for years. Less than a few feet ahead, a clear glass wall blocked his path, and he collided roughly against it. That hadn't been there before; he was sure of it. He wasn't the one who had been barred outside, forbidden from interfering. Yet, there was no arguing with the hard surface which impeded him, or the bruise it had already left on his arm.

Even as he pounded against it, the glass wouldn't give, and it seemed they didn't hear him either way. A slender leg slipped its way onto the bed, distressed jeans bulging in places they ought not, and that man eased his body closer to Hayashi's. It was then that the patient seemed to perk up a bit and she braced a hand against his shoulder, locking her elbow to keep him at arm's length. But the man would allow no deterrences, and as an all too familiar sadistic smile crossed his face, he ground a thumb into her injured shoulder. A strangled cry bubbled up from her chest and she could only hold out a couple seconds longer before the pain caused her good arm to buckle just a bit. But that bit was enough and a lanky hand tacked her good shoulder into place as well. He was again free to do as he wished.

His frame came down on her and brushed across her chest, mimicking a rise and fall that he also recognized. Labored breaths, a complex swirling of activity, excitement, and fear, scourged her core. Spindly fingers embraced the combination, gently making their way to the arch of her back with a deceptively strong grip.

Seething with rage, Saruhiko cast away regulation and reached to his hip for an emergency sword draw. With the full force of the blue aura in his grasp, he affronted the wall as if it was his only true enemy. The sword, backed by power equal to that which has saved his clansmates from the unfurled escape of the Red King Suoh, Mikoto, fell harmlessly from the glass like a mere toy. Neither did a crack form, nor even a tiny chip. The shock of the impact reabsorbed up his forearms, and he dropped the saber to the floor with a clank.

The man seemed to acknowledge his presence then, looking up every so slightly from the crook of Hayashi's neck where he had nuzzled in his affections, slithering his tongue across the stretched tendon and expertly tying knots with the hair there.

"Oh? Does my 'little monkey' want to join our fun?" His deliberately vexing words, muffled by the nape of her neck and bleached pillows, carried surprisingly well through the hollow room, assaulting the so-named 'Monkey' from all sides. The single phrase, repeated so many times - if in reality or only replayed through his mind, he'd really lost track by that point - seemed to fit in every circumstance. A tiny corner of that sickening grin appeared above the edge of Hayashi's neck, and Saruhiko instantly felt as if the man had reached down his throat to tie similar knots in his stomach.

Squeezed between an insatiable mass and a crackling mattress with her only protection, a faint green that blinked into sight and faded all too fast, the girl became notably void of emotion. Scoffing, something like her typical bite parted her lips. "Right, fun..." Silent and unconvincing, a retort that should have been stingingly facetious fell blandly across the impenetrable barrier.

Saruhiko found himself inexplicably moved to desperatism by the resignation. _Nothing_. There was nothing. Why wouldn't she fight back? The person who never stood for any injustice, who had every ability to incapacitate that man for life just laid there. It wasn't anything she wanted, since her muscles inadvertently clenched with that man's every movement. She was just too fatigued. She didn't resist in the slightest anymore.

Her head lolled toward him while that man slobbered over her face like a dog. Expression mostly dead, it held this sudden recognition, like some haze - self induced or otherwise - was clearing. Her mouth formed three voiceless syllables: _Fu-shi-mi._

He hadn't the slightest clue which of them she was referring to, but the knots in his own gut were boiling, erupting ever upward with bile and fire. Flames burst from his fists, tearing from his chest to light up the air as he flung his body at the interminable wall. There had to be a weak point. He had grown so much stronger than _that man._

Panting, Saruhiko collapsed to his knees, her outstretched hand beckoning to him. _That man_ had to take it. Everything that ever mattered, _he_ ruined it. And his hand snaked around hers, drawing it to his waistband. Saruhiko couldn't see what for, just the malicious grin directed straight his way. That was clear enough.

He turned away, pointing his eyes somewhere in the corner on the floor as indifferently as possible. _It wasn't like she really meant any more to him than anyone else._ This time he couldn't even convince himself of such denial, much less the man intended to perceive the apathy.

That person laughed at the half-hearted surrender and proudly displayed what he had forced Hayashi to pull from his pocket. Like a strand of artillery ammunition coiled tightly, ready to load, they held between them a pack of firecrackers - half the length of his unusually long hands, and at least a dozen by number. Yata came to mind instantly, and the threat to launch fireworks from his forehead, a crowded street full of middle schoolers, laughter, and explosions, and a cloud of flames that rose into the air shadowed by a tall silhouette whose appearance shifted between two men like a mirage.

When the flashback whipped through his mind like a bullet train, he knew _exactly_ where that man intended to light that handful of firecrackers. He could already hear the sizzling of the fuses, even as the incessant cracking of the night of the surprise party has not yet faded back to the past. Hayashi's eyes drew an invisible arrow to where Misaki waited obliviously in the hallway.

Her name tore itself from his throat, but it was completely drowned out by the explosions. It sounded like gunshots: gunshots and bombs and firecrackers. And through it all, a pained plea, frantic and somehow quiet, "Saruhiko, please!"

Fushimi lurched forward with a heaving start. The popping sound which had previously filled the room was nowhere to be heard, only the pounding of his heart against the whirring of his dormant computer. That calmed him some, a noise he heard daily dissociated him from his current mental state. It was darker in the room than he thought, and he had to reach for his glasses to survey the surroundings. The bed beneath him was disheveled and layered in sweat, yet his breathing slowed just from acknowledging that he was, in fact, sitting on the top bunk in pajamas.

He blinked carefully, as if comparing the nightmare he had just escaped with the reality around him. Could he really be sure which one of the two had been conjured up by his imagination? His own body was experiencing the same symptoms in both. It took a moment for him to recall that man had died several years prior. Immediately, none of it seemed surprising anymore, and he clicked his tongue in self-scolding. After so many times, shouldn't he remember that man could only do any harm in dreams?

Still, he felt unsettled inside. The clock, he thought, read 4:18, and with the adrenaline still pumping through his veins he concluded it would be more exhausting to try to sleep some more than if he just got up to do some work. As he effectively fell down the ladder, he noticed the sheets smelled like smoke. He wondered how close he'd actually come to activating auras while he slept. That explained the burning pain in his chest, at least. Unconsciously he reached a slender hand to his left collarbone and dug his nails into previously scorched skin.

"Damn bonds," he cursed under his breath.

With all the possibilities he had learned of that evening, he knew he had to go save her.

Three hours and forty-five minutes later, he stood in the king's throne room before the desk of Captain Munakata, Reisi, for the second time that month not at all dressed in uniform, and stated nonnegotiably, "The only way to subjugate the strain rebellion is to examine their tactics, their intentions, and their assets through the eyes of their potential recruits."

Munakata knit his fingers together like he was thoughtfully considering the validity of such a suggestion. Though easily perceiving Fushimi was stretching the truth, he didn't comment on the matter. Fushimi, in turn, volunteered nothing. They simply discussed the business pros and cons of handling their current case in such a manner. After proffering some sage and mildly implicative advice, Munakata sent him off to abandon the cause of his clan and the safety of Japan to chase after a girl with the stamp of approval of a king.


End file.
